Bourn Hall sponsored football team Wickford Town Youth Under-9 Pumas have ended their debut season on a high – moving up two leagues and with two new signings on the books.
Former Bourn Hall patient Shanna, who brokered the kit sponsorship deal with Bourn Hall, is now heavily involved with the administration for the team – assisting her husband Dean who took over as manager earlier in the year.
“It is very hard work on top of our already busy lives but we are devoted to the boys,” says Shanna.
“They have played really well this season and, although it is non-competitive at this age, by Christmas they had moved up two leagues.”
Shanna is mum to Henry (who plays for Wickford Town Youth Under-9 Pumas) and Arabella, who were both conceived following IVF.
Shanna has endometriosis which resulted in both of her fallopian tubes being blocked.
Refused hysterectomy to have babies
Throughout her teenage years and twenties Shanna was blighted by excruciatingly painful periods, needing regular surgery to rectify the damage wreaked by the endometriosis and ovarian cysts.
“It got so bad that I was offered a hysterectomy when I was 21,” says Shanna. “But I had always known that I wanted children and I remember saying ‘absolutely no way.”
Shanna had IVF to conceive both her children. Arabella is a Bourn Hall baby.
“The nurses at Bourn Hall were fantastic, they were always so kind and answered all my emails, nothing was too much trouble,” she says.
Patients given the choice
Bourn Hall Essex is now offering patients the flexibility of the return to face-to-face consultations in its modern and airy clinic – or virtual if it is more convenient.
Shanna hopes that having the Bourn Hall branding on the kit this season will have encouraged others to gain advice if they are struggling to conceive.
“Some people try and try for a baby and don’t understand what is going wrong,” she says. I don’t want infertility to be this bit ‘hush hush’ thing, I want people to talk about it.”
More information
Bourn Hall Wickford, which provides both NHS-funded and self-funded treatment, is hosting an open evening on 18 August 2022 giving people the opportunity to visit Bourn Hall Wickford and meet Dr Arpita Ray, the Lead Clinician, to see what the clinic has to offer.
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